The Kharkiv Plant That Makes Nuclear Plant Turbines, Formerly Turboatom

In Kharkiv there is a plant that has been building power plant turbines for more than 90 years. Long known as “Turboatom” (Турбоатом), it changed its name in 2021 to “Ukrainian Energy Machines” (Українські енергетичні машини, abbreviated Ukrenergomashyny). It is a joint-stock company in which the state holds more than 75% of the shares and, as of September 2026, appears on the Cabinet’s “list of large-scale privatization targets.”

The plant’s history is traced through the company’s own history page and the Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (published by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta — CIUS; hereafter IEU), the state’s stake and its treatment for privatization through decisions of Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers, and developments up to September 2026 through the company’s own announcements.

Construction began in 1929, and operations in 1934

According to the company’s own history, construction of the plant began in 1929, and its first section began operating on May 1, 1932. Its designed capacity was 1.5 million kilowatts a year in steam turbines. The whole plant went into operation as the “Kharkiv Turbine Generator Plant” (KhTGZ) on January 21, 1934, and the company marks this as its founding date. IEU’s entry on Kharkiv likewise states that the Kharkiv Turbine Plant began production in 1934. At the time, Kharkiv was the capital of Soviet Ukraine, and major plants such as the Kharkiv Tractor Plant (1931) came online one after another in the same period.

According to the company’s history, the plant continued operating until October 21, 1941, three days before Kharkiv was occupied, and was then evacuated. Its main equipment and workforce were moved to Sverdlovsk in the Urals (present-day Yekaterinburg, Russia). Rebuilding began once Kharkiv was liberated on August 23, 1943, and by January 1946 the plant had regained its prewar production floor space.

Turbines for nuclear, thermal, and hydroelectric plants

According to the company, it makes steam turbines for thermal power plants, combined heat-and-power plants, and nuclear power plants, and water turbines for hydroelectric and pumped-storage plants. It states that it has the capacity to build 8 million kilowatts’ worth of steam turbines and 2 million kilowatts’ worth of water turbines a year, and that everything from design and research to manufacturing, assembly, testing, and shipping is carried out in-house.

IEU calls this plant “one of the world’s largest producers of turbines for thermal, hydroelectric, and nuclear power plants,” and states that as of 2000, Kharkiv made every large turbine used in Ukraine. This characterization is the encyclopedia’s own, and no figures comparing it with manufacturers in other countries are given.

Examples of its work given in the company’s history include the following.

• 1996–2002: supplied 18 sets of water turbines for the first stage of upgrading the Dnipro River’s hydroelectric plants (Kyiv, Dnipro, Kakhovka, and others). In the second stage, 2003–2017, took part in upgrading 45 units across six plants operated by the hydropower company Ukrhydroenergo
• 1996–2003: won tenders to modernize turbines at Hungary’s Paks Nuclear Power Plant and Finland’s Loviisa Nuclear Power Plant
• 2002: signed a contract with the Nuclear Power Corporation of India for turbine equipment for four units at the Kaiga and Rajasthan nuclear plants, completing delivery in 2006

The number of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, and the state of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia plant, are covered in our article on Ukraine’s 15 reactors.

The 2021 merger, and the state’s stake

On August 26, 2021, the Cabinet of Ministers, by Order No. 1005-r, approved a proposal by the State Property Fund to merge Elektrovazhmash, another Kharkiv electrical equipment maker, into Turboatom. The same order added Turboatom to the “list of large-scale privatization targets.” The state’s stake given in the list was 75.22407664%.

The following Cabinet order of October 6 (No. 1228-r) decided that the Cabinet itself would exercise the state’s rights as shareholder in the renamed “Ukrainian Energy Machines,” and instructed the State Property Fund to transfer the 75.22407664% stake to the Cabinet’s management once the merger procedure was complete (by December 28, 2021 at the latest). In the privatization list, the company was likewise moved from the State Property Fund’s column to the Cabinet’s.

The list in effect as of September 24, 2026 (the version of February 14, 2025) still includes this company, with the state’s stake given as 75.22407664%. Appearing on the list, however, does not mean the timing or method of sale has been decided. As of this article, no notice of a sale tender has been confirmed.

As of a Cabinet decision of November 20, 2019 (No. 950), Turboatom had also been listed among “state assets of strategic significance for the economy and national security.”

A shareholder with Russian ties

Turboatom itself stated, in an announcement in May 2021, that a company holding 5.59% of its shares (BISCONE LIMITED) was connected to the major Russian heavy-electrical company Power Machines, and that its ultimate beneficial owner was the Russian businessman Alexei Mordashov. According to the company, both Mordashov and Power Machines were subject to sanctions from Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council (in effect under 2018 and 2019 presidential decrees), and the company had suspended dividend payments to it. This article has not confirmed how this stake was subsequently handled.

Under the full-scale invasion

Kharkiv has been repeatedly attacked since Russia’s full-scale invasion began on February 24, 2022. In an announcement on April 22, 2024, the company disclosed that its supervisory board had, on April 18, decided on a plan to open branches in the western oblasts of Zakarpattia, Lviv, and Chernivtsi. The reasons it gave were the loss of domestic sources for parts and steel, requiring purchases from abroad; the advantage of being closer to the EU border for exports and moving materials; and the need to reduce the risk of production stopping due to power outages, as Russian missile strikes had increased and made Kharkiv’s power supply unstable. The company states that its headquarters will remain in Kharkiv, and that its registered address will not change.

Into 2026, the company has continued to announce deals with domestic power companies. On February 19, it signed a contract with the hydropower company Ukrhydroenergo to supply equipment for a project financed by a loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the World Bank). On August 28, the company reports, the Minister of Economy and Environment, the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, and the head of the Kharkiv Oblast Military Administration visited the plant to discuss state support for continuing operations under wartime conditions, among other topics.

The scale of attacks on the power grid, and the generating capacity lost, are covered in our article on generating electricity in smaller, distributed units in a country whose plants keep being targeted.